Afghanistan: the McChrystal assessment
The Washington Post has a copy of NATO and US commander General Stanley McChrystal's assessment of the way forward in Afghanistan. You can read the unclassified version here.
Extracts:
"Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) -- while Afghan security capacity matures -- risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible."
"The insurgents control or contest a significant portion of the country, although it is difficult to assess precisely how much due to a lack of ISAF presence. . . .
"Eliminating insurgent access to narco-profits -- even if possible, and while disruptive -- would not destroy their ability to operate so long as other funding sources remained intact."
"A perception that our resolve is uncertain makes Afghans reluctant to align with us against the insurgents."
"Pre-occupied with protection of our own forces, we have operated in a manner that distances us -- physically and psychologically -- from the people we seek to protect. . . . The insurgents cannot defeat us militarily; but we can defeat ourselves ... ISAF does not sufficiently appreciate the dynamics in local communities, nor how the insurgency, corruption, incompetent officials, power-brokers, and criminality all combine to affect the Afghan population."
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Democracy, freedom under GUNS?
Do You realy belive?
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Military solutions to political and social problems have no record of success. There has never been a functioning centeral government.
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This is utterly bewildering.
Either the allies want to exact justice, revenge - call it what you will - for 9/11 and subsequent terror attacks (in which case all they have to do is bomb it to kingdom come), or they want to eliminate it as a potential source or such attacks (in which case limiting the exercise to Afghanistan is absurdly naive) or they are persisting in the even more absurd notion that it is possible and justifiable to attempt to export their model of democracy to unreceptive and unwilling recipients.
Whatever the ambition, isn't it about time they made up their minds?
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> it is difficult to assess precisely how much due to a lack of ISAF presence. . . .
> but we can defeat ourselves
Does anyone condemn this indiscriminate deployment without grasp of the actual local condition? He seems to avert his eyes from a heap of corpses until the US makes a killing.
> Eliminating insurgent access to narco-profits --
Worn-out rhetoric. If international community, especially advanced nations who are the end-consumers or profiteers of underground economy --illegal drug trafficking, human trafficking, arms smuggling, money-laundering, etc. -- control it strictly and earnestly, it is difficult for even Taliban to access sources of money. They transfer their responsibilities to Afghanistan and cook up an excuse of their interventionism.
> A perception that our resolve is uncertain makes Afghans reluctant to align with us against the insurgents.
The US forces and NATO kill civilians and destroy their houses. They promote corruption and tribal conflicts by putting some politicians, who support the US military while being absorbed in their interests and oppressing local people, into positions of power. No one cheers the forces who have destroyed his/her life.
The US and its allies call every person who resists his/her government made by the US "an insurgent." There are the people who resist the US forces after being killed their families or tortured by the US forces. In all likelihood, local communities will take these "insurgents" under their "insurgent"wings. And there are "weekend jihadis" according to BBC News. It seems there is full of "insurgents" in Afghanistan.
If the US wants Afghan people to align with it, it needs to stop killing people and backing up the tyrants who are helpful for its colonial policy, and to improve their standards of living (they are at the brink of starvation). Afghan people know "humanitarian aid" by the US force and NATO is a sop to Cerberus for entrenching occupation.
After all, their imperialistic ambitions masked by "democracy" or set above "human rights" only make Afghan people miserable. The best the forces can do is withdraw from Afghanistan.
Is the reason why NATO just follows the US's lead without its own decision-making that they share a mutual interest?
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